Instagram pays homage to Myspace with newest feature, discussing the latest mixed reality innovations and other notable stories from this week
Welcome to “StockTok,” The Fly’s weekly recap of Wall Street’s reactions to social media stock news.
MUSIC TO YOUR EARS:
A mobile developer says they have spotted a new feature that would let you share what you’re listening to on Meta Platforms’ (META) Instagram, Fortune’s Chris Morris wrote. Alessandro Paluzzi discovered the feature, which would be shared via notes, the author notes. The note featuring the song would appear at the top of the user’s profile picture, letting friends and followers listen in. Spotify (SPOT) has a similar functionality already live with another social media service, the publication adds. Discord users can link their Spotify account to the chat service and share their favorite songs with friends.
SCHOOL IS IN SESSION:
Snap (SNAP) blogged in part: “More than 20 million teens in the U.S. use Snapchat, and we know their digital wellbeing is a top priority for adults in their lives, including parents and teachers. As teens head back to school, we’re launching new safety tools and resources created specifically for educators. These new resources were designed to help educators and school administrators understand how their students use Snapchat, the key protections available to students and schools, and the resources we offer to assist schools in their efforts to create safe and supportive environments for students.We know that Snapchat’s primary use case of messaging with friends makes people happy, and that friends are an important support system for young people. We’re focused on supporting these meaningful relationships, and equipping the adults in their lives with the tools and resources to do so as well.”
MIXED AND AUGMENTED REALITY LATEST:
Meta is planning a new mixed reality device that resembles a bulky pair of glasses, The Information’s Sylvia Varnham O’Regan reported, citing two Meta employees. The project, internally code-named Puffin, suggests the company is looking to design an alternative to its large, heavy headsets, which so far have had limited consumer appeal, the author writes. Mixed reality is a combination of augmented and virtual reality that allows people to see images and text over the real world or a virtual backdrop.
Meta has canceled plans for a premium mixed-reality headset that had been intended to compete with Apple’s (AAPL) Vision Pro, two Meta employees told The Information. Meta told employees at the company’s Reality Labs division to stop work on the device this week after a product review meeting attended by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth and other Meta executives, according to the sources.
Meta and Snap are set to reveal competing AR glasses next month, The Verge’s Alex Heath reported. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is slated to make the first big reveal, when the company will announce the fifth generation of Spectacles on September 17 at Spiegel’s annual Partner Summit, the author said, citing sources. A week after that, Mark Zuckerberg is set to debut Meta’s first AR glasses, codenamed Orion, at the company’s Connect conference, according to the author.
NEW VIDEO CONFERENCE COMPETITOR:
Elon Musk’s X is aiming to compete with platforms like Zoom (ZM), Google Meet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Microsoft Teams (MSFT) with a video conferencing tool, Ivan Mehta wrote for Tech Crunch. Chris Park, an X employee, said on social media that X had its first internal conference through the tool. X owner Elon Musk responded to the post with a fire emoji.
LOSS OF SPARK:
“Following a thorough assessment, we have made the decision to shut down Meta Spark’s platform of third party tools and content, effective Tuesday, January 14. This means that the Augmented Reality or AR, effects built by third parties , including brands and our wider community of AR Creators , will no longer be available beginning on this date. AR Effects owned by Meta will continue to be available to our users across our Family of Apps….This decision is part of our larger efforts to prioritize the products we believe will best serve the future needs of our consumers and business customers alike. We are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible. Those who use Spark and our third-party AR Effects can continue to use these tools across our Family of Apps until January 14 .”
GEOTHERMAL POWER:
Earlier at the U.S. Department Energy’s or DOE, Catalyzing Next Generation Geothermal Development Workshop, Sage Geosystems Sage and Meta Platforms announced a new agreement that would significantly expand the use of geothermal power in the U.S. and would be the first use of next generation geothermal power east of the Rocky Mountains…This partnership will deliver up to 150 MW of new geothermal baseload power to support Meta’s data center growth….” “The U.S. has seen unprecedented growth in demand for energy as our economy grows, the manufacturing sector booms thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda, and new industries like AI expand,” said U.S. Energy Deputy Secretary David Turk. “The Administration views this increased demand as a huge opportunity to add more clean, firm power to the grid and geothermal energy is a game-changer as we work to grow our clean power supply.” The partnership between Sage and Meta signifies a major step forward in the quest for sustainable energy solutions, reinforcing Sage’s position as a leader in the geothermal revolution and Meta’s dedication to pioneering clean energy initiatives. In addition to this first of a kind geothermal project, Meta continues to invest in carbon-free energy to support its data centers and support the transition to a cleaner and more reliable grid. The first phase of this innovative project will aim to be online and operating in 2027.
PRESSURED TO CENSOR:
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Biden administration senior officials had pressured the company to censor COVID-19 content amid the pandemic, Reuters’ Gnaneshwar Rajan noted, citing a letter the CEO sent to the judiciary committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. “In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree. I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret we were not more outspoken about it,” he wrote. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
WELCOME ABOARD:
Zoom Video announced that it has appointed Mike Fenger, vice president, VP, Worldwide Sales, Apple (AAPL), as an independent director on Zoom’s board of directors effective immediately.
NEW STOCK OPTIONS PROCESS:
Elon Musk has sent an email to X employees stating the company plans to award stock options based on the anticipated impact of staff, The Verge’s Kylie Robison reported, citing the email. The company is requiring workers to submit a one-page summary telling leadership about their contributions in order to get their stock, which has added to tensions between leadership and staff after a promotions process was recently delayed.
FOR THE RIGHT PRICE:
Coatue Management, a New York investment firm that was an early and substantial backer of ByteDance and has a seat on the company’s board, is considering selling part of its stake in the TikTok parent, The Information’s Jing Yang, Erin Woo and Juro Osawa wrote. According to people familiar with the talks, Coatue has talked to brokers in the secondary market for private stocks to gauge the interest of possible buyers, and is considering selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of shares out of its multibillion-dollar stake. The firm only wants to sell if it can get a price that values ByteDance at $230B-$240B, one of the people said.
MYSPACE INSPIRED:
Meta’s Instagram announced it will give users the option to add a song on their profile, reminiscent of Myspace, two decades ago, wrote Mia Sato for The Verge. The added music will be in “the bio area, according to screenshots shared by Instagram,” added the story. The profile song stay until the user replaces or removes “but unlike Myspace, songs won’t autoplay,” noted the story.
LLAMA:
Meta’s Llama is struggling to gain traction on Amazon’s (AMZN) AWS, where Claude is most popular, according to The Information’s Sylvia Varnham O’Regan, Theo Wayt and Aaron Holmes. A staffer familiar with the matter said Microsoft only pitches Llama to clients with data expertise.
KeyBanc downgraded Sprout Social (SPT). The company is facing a weaker bookings year “than even the sharply slower reported numbers imply,” the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm says Sprout’s shift away from monthly customers toward larger, annual deals distorts some of the metrics that the company reports. Current bookings and remaining performance obligation are inflated when monthly cohorts are converted to annual, contends KeyBanc. It finds that Sprout’s first half bookings may not have just slowed materially but, in fact, may have declined year-over-year on an organic basis. The firm expects this performance to have longer lasting impacts on financials.
Deutsche Bank raised the firm’s price target on Zoom Video. The company’s Q2 results largely mirrored recent trends with a 1% revenue beat and more outsized upside to margins driving double-digit earnings upside, the analyst told investors in a research note. The firm says Zoom is hitting an “inflection” in growth but the slope of reacceleration is less clear.
Wells Fargo raised the firm’s price target on Zoom. The firm noted Q2 results were in-line, with revenues modestly above prior guide and more meaningful free cash flow outperformance. ROY outlook suggests growth has troughed, which is encouraging, but still a leap of faith given prior challenges calling turn and now CFO transition, Wells added.
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Originally Posted August 2024 – StockTok: Zuckerberg details government pressure to censor COVID content
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